Since the adoption of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) by major retailers in US and Europe, many vendors and suppliers have been trying to integrate RFID into their production and distribution processes. However, because of different factors and uncertainties, RFID is usually implemented without 100% accuracy. There is not a systematical method to be used to find out a best solution for the RFID deployment in regard to the conformance and performance of the RFID deployment. Traditionally the deployment setup and configuration can only be evaluated and optimized by trial and error, and consequently the design of the RFID deployment is also carried out by trial and error.
On the other hand, most companies may set up the RFID apparatus with neglect of the environmental factors and only reference to the specification of the RFID apparatus. For example, if an RFID system requires 3 meter read range as claimed in the specification, an RFID interrogators (or called RFID reader or controller, etc.) and antennas may be used and set up. However, due to different environment factors, the read range may be reduced or enhanced. If the deployment plan is set based on the specification and trial or error of RFID apparatus products, the performance of the deployment is difficult to be guaranteed and expected, and it may become the failure factor of RFID-based project.
In addition to understand the deployment site, companies should also consider the correct tagging placement to ensure the reading performance. Since different material of the target object and the nature of the contained matters affect the RFID performance, it is also difficult to search for an optimal position for different tagging placements on different target objects or product SKU.